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pdf The ABC of Anarchism , ebook The ABC of Anarchism , epub The ABC of Anarchism , doc The ABC of Anarchism , e-pub The ABC of Anarchism , The ABC of Anarchism 26c43550190 A Gifted Writer For The Anarchist Movement, Alexander Berkman Left Russia For The United States In When He Was Eighteen Thirty One Years Later, After Serving A Prison Term For An Attempted Assassination, He Was Expelled To The Soviet Union, A Country Which He Eventually Renounced But Before His Repudiation Of The Soviet System, Berkman Attempted To Answer Some Of The Charges Made Against Anarchism And To Present Its Case Clearly And Intelligently This Book, First Published In , Is The Result Of Those EffortsThorough And Well Stated, The ABC Of Anarchism Is Today Widely Regarded As A Classic Declaration Of The Movement S Goals And Methods For Those Who Have Questions About Anarchism, Berkman Provides Lucid Answers In Conversational Tones, He Discusses Society As It Existed In The Early Twentieth Century Why In His Opinion, Anarchy Was Necessary The Myths Surrounding It And Necessary Preparations For Its Successful Implementation Of The Book, Emma Goldman Said People Need A Primer Of Anarchism An ABC, As It Were, That Would Teach Them The Rudimentary Principles Of Anarchism And Whet Their Appetites For Something Profound The Book Was Intended To Serve This Purpose That It Has Fulfilled Its Purpose No One Who Has Read It Will Deny

10 thoughts on “The ABC of Anarchism ”

Back in the sixties Chicago s Lincoln Park was an interesting neighborhood The International headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was there above something I recall as The Armenian American Soup Kitchen So was DePaul University and the Chicago Theological Seminary the reason the restaurant on the corner of Fullerton and Halsted is still called the Seminary Down Halsted there was a used bookstore, The Guild, filled with middle aged communists with whom I used to argue and f Back in the sixties Chicago s Lincoln Park was an interesting neighborhood The International headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was there above something I recall as The Armenian American Soup Kitchen So was DePaul University and the Chicago Theological Seminary the reason the restaurant on the corner of Fullerton and Halsted is still called the Seminary Down Halsted there was a used bookstore, The Guild, filled with middle aged communists with whom I used to argue and from which I bought my first book by C.G Jung Further down and just left on Armitage was the best bookstore of them all The Solidarity Bookshop, a nineteenth century stoplight in the front window, always on, red forever.Solidarity was such an anarchist institution that I often worked there In other words, whoever was working there was quite comfortable to have a sixteen year old take over the shop while he or she went down the street for a bite at the local walk up greasy spoon There wasn t much business There wasn t even a cash register or maybe there was, an ancient one that didn t work I believe we kept the money, such as it was, in a cigar box In any case, I had ample opportunity to browse whether or not on duty Gosh, it was wonderful, the ideal model of a bookstore Old, woody, dusty, but organized, yes, organized Calabrian labour, IWW, Coordinadora, Spanish Civil War, Socialism, Anarcho Syndicalism, et cetera.My first purchase was Berkman s The ABC of Anarchism I think the guy in jeans and blue workshirt who seemed to be managing the store suggested it because I didn t know what I was doing I just wanted to know what anarchism was as a political philosophy as distinct from communism and socialism and impressive sounding syndicalism His advice was good Berkman s essay is clear and understandable, a good start for teenagers in pursuit of a better world.The store is gone now So is the Guild So is the IWW So is the soup kitchen So even is the Chicago Theological Seminary The Yuppies moved in, replacing the Brown Berets and the Panthers, laying a townhouse foundation in what used to be Chicago s own Peoples Park Ugh

Required reading, right Volume 1 of Working Classics Series, for example One of the strengths of this book is meant to be its simple language and clear argumentation At first, I felt like it was talking down to me, but the further I got into it, theI liked it, as Berkman builds his argument I was a little disappointed with the bits about violence Berkman shot Frick and failed to kill him Later, it is suspected, he was involved with some kind of bomb workshop that exploded So ma Required reading, right Volume 1 of Working Classics Series, for example One of the strengths of this book is meant to be its simple language and clear argumentation At first, I felt like it was talking down to me, but the further I got into it, theI liked it, as Berkman builds his argument I was a little disappointed with the bits about violence Berkman shot Frick and failed to kill him Later, it is suspected, he was involved with some kind of bomb workshop that exploded So maybe he s not the right guy to try and distance the movement from its violent reputation On the other hand, he d matured by the time he wrote this, the environment had changed and he s thinking differently about violence It would have been even worse if he d ignored the subject I think he should have written someabout it, though His argument here seems to boil down to They are a lotviolent than we are It seems like he didn t expect his own violent actions to spark the revolution, it waslike, Frick was being all gangsta and Berkman was like, he needs to get got The bits in Emma Goldman s autobiography about Berkman vs Frick arethoughtful.This book gets really good at the end, though, and the chapter about what kinds of labor unions we need to make a social revolution was great A great deal of Berkman s vision of an anarchist society sounds like The Conquest of Bread lite, but I like that This was written after the tragedy of Bolshevism, and Berkman uses the Russian Revolution as an example a lot, what they did right, what they did wrong He has some other books that apparently get deeper into that, like his book on the Kronstadt Rebellion That stuff was interesting, too, because usually, you get the liberal version, where everything between February 1917 and July was good, and then July to October was not so good, and then after October its all bad, but Berkman isnuanced, without being sympathetic to the dictators Allow me to quote from the conclusion to this book Force and suppression, persecution, revenge, and terror have characterized all revolutions in the past and have thereby defeated their original aims The time has come to try new methods, new ways

Very good overview of Communism, Anarchism, their relations, divisions internal and external , and simple explanations for our history as a class conflict Still very applicable today, and not difficult to read compared to other radicals despite being nearly one hundred years old.But, I have a problem with his use of certain words, such as barbarians and civilized It s soauthoritarian, and I wish he knew that There are likely other words and comments, too, which I don t remember.As t Very good overview of Communism, Anarchism, their relations, divisions internal and external , and simple explanations for our history as a class conflict Still very applicable today, and not difficult to read compared to other radicals despite being nearly one hundred years old.But, I have a problem with his use of certain words, such as barbarians and civilized It s soauthoritarian, and I wish he knew that There are likely other words and comments, too, which I don t remember.As the book goes on, he gets a bit ranty and repetitive Yes, I understand now that the general strike is the vital first stage of the social revolution today Yes, I understand the workers must throw out their bosses and managers as the first stage of revolution Yes, I get it Each paragraph eventually by p 140 becomes an irritant Production and distribution, production and distribution, immediate reshaping of society, but only after a long period of gestation of the masses radicalism to boiling point Okay Fine The repetition going nowhere eventually led me to skipping the sections of the last 20 pages, about production and so on.Nonetheless, I would encourage any readers curious about the topic to read this early on in their self education

Alexander Berkman was a well known anarchist in the later 19th and early part of the 20th century He took part in a number of events, including an effort to assassinate a leading industrialist After years in prison, he continued his activism, editing publications for instance This book is an example of his political views He was hardly the most cerebral and talented of the writers in this movement But he does address many key questions in his own voice, such as Is anarchism violence Wh Alexander Berkman was a well known anarchist in the later 19th and early part of the 20th century He took part in a number of events, including an effort to assassinate a leading industrialist After years in prison, he continued his activism, editing publications for instance This book is an example of his political views He was hardly the most cerebral and talented of the writers in this movement But he does address many key questions in his own voice, such as Is anarchism violence What is anarchism Is anarchy possible and so on.If you want a brief introduction to Berkman s views, this will suffice nicely

What should be a middle schooler s primer on the basic tenets of 20thc Anarchism is actually this book which would prove unreadable to cynical hipsters or bootstrap dems reps Berkman s is a world of people who live even grander than the promises of liberalism Berkman just lays it out, simply, all the creative bountiful joys we should be enjoying on planet earth because we are alive Then he tells ya how to get there from here Not because we toil, but because creation and production and frui What should be a middle schooler s primer on the basic tenets of 20thc Anarchism is actually this book which would prove unreadable to cynical hipsters or bootstrap dems reps Berkman s is a world of people who live even grander than the promises of liberalism Berkman just lays it out, simply, all the creative bountiful joys we should be enjoying on planet earth because we are alive Then he tells ya how to get there from here Not because we toil, but because creation and production and fruition are our birthright and achievable through equitable social structures like those found in Anarchism

I was already turned away from capitalism when I read this book and it did a really good job of showing how under current conditions socialism would never take over however it didn t really paint a feasible picture of what an ideal, functioning anarchist world would look like This is a great book for socialists and capitolists to use to question their own way of thinking For the anarchist this is a great book for building your arguments and getting a better foundation of what anarchy can be.

Not the most fleshed out description of anarchist thought, but a good intro Tends to get lost in utopian speculation The real wealth here is in Berkman s deconstruction of western values and the assumptions that underlie our conceptions of civilization e.g, I especially enjoyed his perspective on war.